Per capita GDP and how it is distributed is not all that important?Tell that to places like Haiti.

And yes, the US was in a good position after WWII, but to say that ifwe had done the conservative thing and destroyed our unions and goodpaying jobs and destroyed upper income mobility and destroyed theability to get a loan to start a business (in 1977 we had twice asmany entrepreneurs as now) and our GDP would have grown just as fastand been distributed as evenly as it was is crazy.

On Thu, Oct 25, 2012 at 11:29 AM, kirby urner <kirby.urner@gmail.com> wrote:> On Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 9:21 PM, Paul Tanner <upprho@gmail.com> wrote:>> On Wed, Oct 24, 2012 at 11:27 PM, GS Chandy <gs_chandy@yahoo.com> wrote:>>> I characterize economics as constituting the dismal > non-science nonpareil'>>>>>>> Please do not let conservatism confuse you. What you say above applies>> to the nonsense of economic conservatism, but not real economic>> science, which is very mathematically based, something that economic>> conservatism utterly rejects, in part because true mathematically>> based economic science such conservative silliness such as government>> being evil and taxation and government spending as necessarily>> something that slows down economic growth.>>>> I do not share your sanguine view of mathematically based economics,> nor do many economists, including many who use plenty of mathematics.>> The best analyses do not involve money at all, given nature is not> using money except in the context of human language processing, a kind> of energy processing or metabolism.>> Solar energy, photosynthesis, the breakdown of metabolites and the gas> exchange this entails -- these physical processes are the basis of our> ecosystem and the ecosystem *is* the economy.>> Economics tends to buy into this idea of "currency" as some kind of> "magic juice" that should only be lent, not just given, because "money> doesn't grow on trees". But in fact it does, in the form of edible> metabolites fueled by solar energy and photosynthesis. The local star> makes for negentropy. That's just physics, no economics need apply.>>> To see that what I'm saying is true, just actually look at the most>> successful economies in history when they were the most successful:>>>> The most prosperous times for the US including when its prosperity was>> spread out most evenly were when it most closely adhered to true>> mathematically based economic science, during the most liberal,>> progressive, pro-union, big-government years in US history, the>> generation after WWII. (The top tax brackets for both regular income>> and capital gains were in the neighborhood of 70% or higher then.)>>>> I think it's shallow to attribute US prosperity in this era to is> close adherence to "mathematically based economic science". The US> was geographically removed from the devastation of Europe and became> an industrial powerhouse in a world of bombed cities.>> What did result was this North American belief that the road to> prosperity is through weapons manufacture and sales. That's also how> to make friends and influence them>> The prime contractor irrigation system was set up under Truman through> Kennedy (and warned about by Eisenhower), a post-FDR socialism that> pumps funds through the Pentagon and through what is today the Beltway> Junta.>> That's why you have General Dynamics insisting on making more M1 tanks> even with a desert full of unused M1s. From a clinical standpoint,> it's psychosis, but from a political standpoint it's jobs jobs jobs.>> Your nostalgia for post-WW2 "economics" is typical of USAers. The> movie 'Why We Fight' is useful anthropology in this regard, in tracing> the history of neoliberal Cold War militarism based on RAND style> analysis (lots of math, a veneer over ideology). The resulting> "realpolitik" typified by Nixon-Kissinger led to the USAs post-WW2> decline based on continued faulty analysis and a commitment to> militarism. That brings us pretty much up to date.>> Kirby